“Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.”

Talk about a “tap-dancing” statement. If significant AGW global warming turns out to be correct (something I very much doubt), the APS can say “See, we told you so.” If significant AGW global warming turns out to be just so much “hot air”, then APS can say: “We never said that anthropogenic generated greenhouse gases were a major problem, only that they had an effect on the climate.” The APS wants to have and eat its cake. Bottom line, the APS statement is so nebulous as to be meaningless, which may portend the public’s perception of the APS in the near future.

Reed Coray

I’m a bit on your side but feel a bit annoyed that some of your fellow-supporters (and mine) have to resort to totally negative and logically dubious devices.

I refer, of course, to the unecessary artefact of attacking an individuals lack of scientific background when making an opinion about scientific matters. Lord m. he is not an accredited scientist, nor is he a discredited scientist, he is an, or was, an adviser on such matters.

He, as Al is, is no more, or less than the bullet fired by his scientific advisers. The impact, or lack of, is due to the chemistry of his propellants- his advisers.
Let us not forget that the credo of AGW was not established solely by the bullet of the IPCC but by the symbiotic chemistry of Dr Hansen et Al- the leading climatologists of our generation- but by the underpinning atomic theory of their fellow physicists, statisticians and, indeed, the whole scientific community.
To pursue an ad hominem attack track on this individual as opposed to a serious scientific demolition of his propositions undermines the whole purpose of the underlining basis of the consensus peer-review process that it has taken years to bring to the front of public view.

Please do not give the sceptics any more wriggle factor than they’ve already insinuated

No insult intended mate- Remember the truth will always out

Take care

Could you, perhaps, explain you objection to his point of view. Is it because he is not a scientist and thus is irrelevant or have I missed the point?
Thank You for you Considration

I’m a year older now. My sources are still on message. I’ve read lots since then and experienced many emotions in having done so. I see many points of commonality between the middle-ground, pro and anti AGW factions- I leave the extremists views to others as I have no wish to get pulled into ad hominem or new-age religious issues (at this moment).

Middle-ground examples of agreement-:

(1) To become more energy and resource conservative.

(2) To diminish the adverse pollution of our surroundings.

(3) To develop new energy sources

(4) To use the scientific method-when explained clearly and neutrally – to seek out real problems and realistic solutions

Irrespective of stance, the common thread that unifies both sides (middle-ground) of the debate is a shared and concerned humanistic perspective that seeks to improve the future prospects of all.

(IMO -contrary to what many would have us believe, most pro agw’s are not rabid anti-globalists- and neither are sceptics – gas-guzzlin’ child eaters)

Where we differ most is not where we wish to be, but how we should get there and what dangers we should avoid to guide us there. The scientific evidence is contradictory, otherwise we’d all be on facebook rather than here, irrespective of what the nay-sayers, heretics or great-unwashed pronounce or pontificate.

What will be, will be –that is science! We shouldn’t confuse science with scientific- the former is a noun independent of our motives or emotions – the latter is an adjective which takes its meaning from whatever noun happens to be attached! EG- Scientific Evidence.

I know which side of the argument I now lean towards but I’m taking no bets about how I’ll think tomorrow. C’mon folks, open up the debate and let our best thinking beat our worst prejudices.

Tea anyone?

REPLY: Welcome Roy, well said. – Anthony

Let’s recap: Monckton is invited to submit a paper to a scientific journal. On or about the day of publication, his associates publish a press release which implies that the journal’s parent body, the APS, endorses his paper, which supposedly ‘proves’ that AGW is false.

The blogosphere embellishes the press release, claiming that the APS has reversed its stance on global warming. The APS attaches a disclaimer to Monckton’s article, reiterating its acceptance of AGW. Monckton starts jumping up and down, squawking that he’s being repressed, and demanding an apology for an action he helped set in train.

I’ll give you this: the guy’s a consummate showman. However, I predict that this attempt to storm the AGW ramparts through the side door will fall flat. The shame is that he’s spoiled the prospects for other sceptics who might want to take part in these sorts of semi-official forums.

Does anybody here seriously beleive that the APS, or its governing body: the APS council, has an officially established position regarding what the ‘correct’ varlues of kappa, lambda or f (or the combinded so called ‘climate sensitivity’) are, and what is the proper way to assess them and to evaluate available data indirectley?

I don’t think so!

“I think the APS, probably even those editors of the newsletter, now realize that they have been ‘used’ by Monckton.”

Brendan H adds that he is also in agreement with that amazing statement. George Orwell might have added: …and black is white, wrong is right, up is down, and evil is good.

Of course it is preposterous to claim that the arbitrary reneging on the part of the APS management is somehow the fault of the invitee. It shows the desperation of those still clinging to their [repeatedly falsified] belief in catastrophic runaway global warming, and the unethical lengths to which they will go to Shore up their belief system in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary.

My hat is off to Fat Bigot, Syl, jeez, Anna Keppa, Bruce Cobb, James, David Hagen, Dodgy Geezer, and the many others above who have effectively demolished the APS apologists’ arguments, far more effectively than I could have done.

Finally, a comment on the undeniable fact that in sunlight a car will substantially heat up, and will retain and re-radiate that heat. When I was growing up in the midwest, a local radio station would routinely fry an egg on the sidewalk on hot days as a P.R. stunt for ratings. The same heat island effect is encountered in temperature stations that have been improperly sited on asphalt or cement pads, or on gravel, or next to cinder block walls. It is not surprising that many stations surveyed indicate a temperature that is more than five degrees C higher than nearby rural stations that have been correctly sited.

Different people have different ways of saying the same thing. I fully agree with Joel Shore’s comment: “I think the APS, probably even those editors of the newsletter, now realize that they have been “used” by Monckton.”

The evidence for this is the press release on behalf of Monkton, which implies that the APS supports his paper. But the press release is, at the least, misleading, and at the worst, intentionally so. The APS clearly does not support Monkton’s paper. That’s why they issued the disclaimer.

If I might say so the comments you both make contain balanced and firmly expressed points about the merits of Lord Monckton’s paper. As you clearly understand, I feel Mr Shore went too far in expressing his views.

Whether we debate the way the IPCC assessed historical data, the way Mr Gore puts his case or the inability of science to explain why a cricket ball swings more in humid conditions, we must always debate with a thick veneer of politeness and mutual respect (even if we take the view that anyone holding an opinion opposed to our own should be taken away to a place of seclusion and given nothing but raffia to entertain them for the rest of their lives).

The substance of any debate is obscured if we engage in gratuitous rudeness, all the more so if our rudeness verges on the defamatory. My response to Mr Shore’s comment was no more, and no less, than the result of my belief that he stepped way across the line.

I make no pretence about my own position. The conclusions of the IPCC and the amplification of those conclusions by Mr Gore are very unwelcome to me. I have read, heard, watched and listened to them and my first reaction was, as it remains today, that they are both fanciful and not what I want to hear. Because of that I will only accept what they say if I am persuaded that (i) the data they use in their analysis, (ii) their methods of assessing those data and (iii) the conclusions they draw from that analysis are unimpeachable. And even then I will need to be persuaded that the solutions Mr Gore advocates are a price worth paying.

Others do not share my approach, and it is quite right that they should not, because we all hold the opinions we do as a result of our own experiences of life and our own tastes, desires and values.

We have all seen those on the sceptical side hurling insults and defamatory comments at their opponents and I regard those insults and defamations in exactly the same way that I view insults and defamatory comments made against sceptics. They are unnecessary, irrelevant and impermissible obstructions to the debate and all they achieve is to show the accuser to be engaging in emotive rather than rational argument. Perhaps we should just ignore them, but I am an old-fashioned sort of chap and feel it necessary to speak out if I feel something has been said which is so far the wrong side of the line that it needs to be challenged.

Having said that, my analysis of Mr Shore’s comments is nothing more than my analysis. I might have misunderstood him, and I hope I have. I hope he did not intend to suggest that Lord Monckton engaged in a deliberate deceit for the purpose of self-aggrandisement because such a suggestion would only weaken Mr Shore’s standing in the debate.

http://thefatbigot.blogspot.com/2008/06/common-sense-anyone.html

They used CG in Enemy at the Gates for the Stukas and Panzer IIIs as I recall.

Maybe CGI will ultimately deal with the problem.

You have a point: we cant know if Monckton actually believes the nonsense he has published. For instance, I don’t know if Monckton misread figure 9.1 of the IPCC report or if he intentionally misrepresented it. Based on his paper, I’d say he doesn’t know what he’s doing, so the tropical tropospheric hotspot mistake could be “honest.”

It appears that the first editor didn’t realize how bad Monckton’s paper was. It’s good that people at APS with more experience in climate science are stepping in. They don’t want incorrect information to come out under their name.

Notice that they could have removed the article itself–the mistakes in it are worthy of such a response. I would have removed the paper until a proper rebuttal had been written and presented alongside Monckton’s work. But the APS warning is at least a start.

Read the 15 July press release by the Science & Public Policy Institute, which lists Monkton as its chief policy adviser.

[Heading] “Proved: There is No Climate Crisis
WASHINGTON (7-15-08) – Mathematical proof that there is no “climate crisis” appears today in a major, peer-reviewed paper in Physics and Society, a learned journal of the 10,000-strong American Physical Society, SPPI reports.”

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/press/proved_no_climate_crisis.html

Monkton claims to have “proved” in a “major, peer-reviewed paper” that there is no climate crisis, when his paper is in fact a discussion piece. He claims the publication is a “learned journal”, when in fact Physics & Society is a populist, ginger publication.

Not only is Monkton making some very overblown claims for his discussion paper, he is also implicating the American Physical Society in his blowhards. If I were them, I would be mightily aggrieved at this misuse of the society’s reputation.

As for Monkton’s being found out, scientific rebuttals tend to be highly technical and nuanced. What people remember are the headlines, and it’s crystal clear from the press release that Monkton sees his paper as a major publicity coup.

I find this argument more than a little troubling.

Lord Monckton’s paper is what it is: it might be right in everything it says, it might be wrong in everything it says, it might be a mixture of right and wrong, but it is the same paper today that it was the minute it was published.

Issuing a press release about it does not change a word of the paper and, therefore, cannot be a proper basis for issuing a disclaimer about the substance of the paper when no disclaimer was thought necessary before. And I stress that the disclaimer addressed the substance of Lord Monckton’s conclusions – exactly the same conclusions that were published without the need for a disclaimer.

The suggestion that he “pretended to be trying to convince physicists of his point-of-view but his real motive seems more to use APS to lend legitimacy to his arguments” makes no sense at all. Since Mr Shore is clearly very excited about what he sees as a “right-wing” plot, it’s clear that I must spell out exactly what I mean.

If one is pretending to do “A” but is actually seeking to do “B” it is necessary for “A” and “B” to be mutually inconsistent … I am dressed like this so I can pretend to be a woman, in fact I am a man; I am pretending to be a qualified dentist, in fact I am not a qualified dentist. By definition “pretence” requires one to assert the existence of some fact or matter one knows to be absent. What is it that Mr Shore says was absent? He defines the pretence as “trying to persuade physicists of his point of view”. So, Mr Shore asserts that Lord Monckton was not in fact trying to persuade physicists of his point of view. If that is so, Lord Monckton can have had no genuine belief in the truth of the position he was putting forward, in other words, he was lying when he put forward his arguments and invited people to accept them as correct.

Then we must ask what Mr Shore says Lord Monckton WAS trying to do, because it is the antithesis to the pretence which exposes it as a pretence. He asserts that the true motive was to “use APS to lend legitimacy to his arguments”. In order for Mr Shore to be correct it would be necessary for Lord Monckton to believe that his arguments would be rejected by the physicists but to have been hoping, despite that rejection, to gain support for his arguments simply by having his paper published.

What a very bizarre scenario: “I want to be taken seriously so I will get a paper published in a serious magazine aimed at people specially skilled in the field I am addressing. I know that they will reject my arguments because I am lying and they know what they are talking about, but I will gain a good reputation because I have had a paper published.”

What complete and utter nonsense. The very act of exposing a theory to expert examination defeats the whole object of the deceit which Mr Shore says was being perpetrated.

To compound his error (we can leave it to Lord Monckton to decide whether it is not just error but defamation), Mr Shore seeks to suggest that Lord Monckton, having tried to use APS in a scam, drummed-up “right-wing media coverage making false claims about the paper”. I do not know whether Mr Shore means the headline in this Blog or the various websites that have linked to it, but I am not aware of any evidence that Lord Monckton has had any input into the references that have been made to his paper or the way in which it has been described by others.

So, thus far we have the following accusations against Lord Monckton: (i) he present a deceitful paper, (ii) he used APS as a vehicle for his deceit, (iii) he drummed-up a media campaign and (iv) he supported false claims about his paper.

Quite a nice catalogue of outrageous allegations and quite enough for one day, but not enough for Mr Shore.

He then seeks to dismiss Lord Monckton’s letter of complaint and, in the process, the review of his paper to which he refers in that letter. Mr Shore does this with these words: “his arguments that would likely fail to make it into the real peer-reviewed literature. (I say “likely” because peer review is not perfect and there have been some pretty pathetic recent examples of that.)”

I assume Mr Shore is not seeking to assert that the “real” peer-reviewed literature would reject a paper for any reason other than lack of space or a perceived lack of merit in the paper itself (this is an assumption we must all make because we are fair-minded people who do not engage in wild accusations or defamation). None of us is ever in a position to say that a paper is “likely” to be rejected for lack of space, so it seems fair to infer that Mr Shore is saying the paper would be rejected for lack of merit. So now we should reject Lord Monckton’s paper because it has been published in a second-rate journal and it has only been published there because he was practising a deceit. I know little of the APS but I have no reason to believe it is anything other than a serious organisation and certainly not a repository for second-rate waffle.

And what are we to make of “peer review is not perfect and there have been some pretty pathetic recent examples of that”? Is Mr Shore asserting that the review of Lord Monckton’s paper was not a proper peer review? That is certainly how I interpret it and, if my interpretation is correct, we appear to find the reviewer being criticised as well.

[snip]

I am minded to copy Mr Shore’s comment to Lord Monckton together with these observations of mine, but I must first give Mr Shore an opportunity to respond.